AAT
Reflective Analysis
When teaching in a diversified yet structured environment, many factors come into play
for there to be an all-inclusive and ordered classroom. In preparing to become a professional
educator, all of these factors have to work together in order to be successful. This includes
setting clear goals for your classroom and students, lesson planning, adapting to the variety of
learning styles and utilizing different methods to reach each student individually, and performing
regular updates on your students progress academically. Each of these factors play a unique role
in the success of your students, and whether learned in person through field training, or from
someone with more experience, there is always more to learn.
At the beginning of any journey taken, there is always an end goal. The same can be said
for the classroom. Starting the academic year with goals for your students and the classroom,
will not only encourage the learning process within each individual, but motivate both you as the
educator, and the students, throughout the school year. By doing this in your instructional
planning, it gives you a direction in which you will guide your classroom towards, giving
yourself a map that each lesson will continuously lead to. These goals should also emphasize the
needs of each student, and what can and will be done to ensure their grasps of key concepts.
Once the goals of the classroom and students have been established, the rough draft for
your lesson plans is now there to expand on. Lesson planning is crucial, for if you have no
direction, precious time could be lost that could be used for review, or individual assistance
instead. Lesson planning creates a sense of order to your teaching, which is beneficial in multiple
ways. It creates structure and lays foundations for your students to build on, minimizing
confusion in grasping concepts later on in the year. As each student is different, these lesson
plans should be made in varying methods to best suit the learning needs and styles that will
ensure the greatest possible success rate within your classroom.
Regarding each of your students as individuals while teaching is essential to their
academic progress. Although we teach the class collectively, they all may not learn based off of
the way we teach, which is why modifying the approach to some lessons could make or break
their success. Variety in lessons allows the students to gain the information that may come more
naturally to them. For example, there are visual learners, where diagrams, charts, and mind maps
apply. Kinesthetic learners, where hands on activities or group activities work in portraying the
concepts easier than auditory instruction. The many more styles of learning give an insight into
how we can acknowledge the differences in our students, and create an all-inclusive classroom.
Variety in styles also include media, whether it be worksheets, white boards, smart boards, etc.
Consistently varying the media used in lessons could positively affect the classroom, constantly
having new medias to learn from.
Throughout the duration of the year, it is important to keep yourself updated on the
progress of where your students are compared to your lessons. After a key TEK has been taught,
something as simple as an exit slip, or a pop quiz, as well as the tests given at the end of the
lesson, are ways to ensure that the concept has been fully received by your students. As well as
the lessons, these checks should also be varied, as to not overwhelm the students, but still
receiving accurate data. The data from these checks will then influence which step to take,
whether that be individual instruction for the students falling behind in a certain area, or general
review for a topic the class as a whole needs a refresher for. Progress monitoring is imperative as
an educator, as to ensure every student is getting the right amount of feedback, review, and
individual instruction to succeed.
Each component of instructional planning is crucial in effectively reaching your students.
Goal setting, lesson planning, varying methods, and progress monitoring, all have an influence
on how well our students learn. One without the other is insufficient, for we want to be able to
give each of our students the best possible path to achieve the most in our classroom, and it is our
responsibility to ensure that happens.
